Movie Review: ‘IT’ has everything you could hope for

See Tim’s review on KARE-TV (NBC) with Adrienne Broaddus in the video above.

“IT” (R)

Pennywise the Dancing Clown is back and as terrifying as ever in “IT,” the hotly anticipated big-screen adaptation of the best-selling Stephen King novel. Coming in at a whopping 1,137 pages, the novel was originally adapted as a two-part TV miniseries in 1990 with Tim Curry as Pennywise, who planted himself in the nightmares of the youths of the day.

Now, 27 years later – the same time increment in which Pennywise returns to wreak havoc in the fictional town of Derry, Maine – Bill Skarsgard (“Hemlock Grove”) is Pennywise, a shapeshifting clown who feeds on the fears of kids and manifests himself in different ways to terrify members of a group of pre-teen misfits (known as The Loser’s Club), who are constantly being targeted by bullies.

Pennywise’s first victim is Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott), who is lured to the opening of storm sewer and meets a grisly fate. With his body pulled into the netherworld of the vicious clown, Georgie is presumed dead by everyone but his older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), who along with his buddies Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) and Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), as well as new Loser’s Club members Beverly (Sophia Lillis), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) search out to find him –well-knowing they could be next.

“IT” has it all – jump scares, horrifying imagery, a foreboding atmosphere, a decrepit haunted house and ghoulish characters. At its heart, though, it’s a 1980s-like coming-of-age tale, a la the Stephen Spielberg movies of the ’80s and Rob Reiner’s brilliant 1986 adaptation of King’s novella “The Body,” which was retitled “Stand by Me.” “IT,” in fact, is also loaded with unexpected humor, which takes the edge off the otherwise terrifying narrative. One thing is for certain: “IT” doesn’t disappoint.